Here’s something you may never have expected to hear about ever: copies of the 30 years old Atari 2600 E.T. game are set to be mined out from within the concrete landfill from whence they were originally buried.

The story is a mad one, as might be expected really.

Basically, the original E.T. game was so vomit-inducingly, eye-gougingly, brain-meltingly bad that every company even remotely connected to it wanted it killed off and forever removed from existence. To this day it can proudly boast about being one of the biggest commercial failures in video game history.

So, in an act that is still 50% urban legend, a year after its release every single copy of the gaming monstrosity that Atari couldn’t sell was packed up and buried in concrete to suffer the same fate as some master criminal or serial killer.

Fast-forward 30 years and the Canadian based company Fuel Industries has received permission to excavate the legendary dumping ground for a documentary based on the Alamogordo (New Mexico) landfill where it’s located. Digging begins next Tuesday, June 4th.

The site allegedly contains all of the games, consoles and other Atari junk that nobody could ever want, but in the same time it’s almost like making history; a time-capsule from three decades ago reeking of human shame.

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